From MaRS to Zombies: The Scuttlebutt from Queen's Park

One week ago I was attacked by zombies right here in my home town of Perth. I’m generally on guard for these types of attacks while I’m in Toronto or at the Legislature, but was caught completely off guard in Perth. You can see what I'm talking about by clicking here!

Despite the Legislature being in recess until October 20th, there were still many important activities taking place. During September, The Standing Committee on Estimates began examining the spending of various Ministries. As the lead Member for the Opposition on the Committee, I exposed many practices that are best described as incompetence in the Ministry of Tourism and an unfolding debacle at MaRS. In addition, we will be examining the expenditures of the Ministries of Community and Social Services, Energy and Health, among others, in the coming weeks.

The lack of oversight was on clear display as the Tourism Ministry was caught flat footed not having tabled the expenses or annual reports for many of the agencies under his responsibility.

MaRS is a not-for-profit charity that certainly appears to be receiving generous heaps of tax payer money without any oversight or accountability, and my questions to the Premier and Minister Duguid are being deflected here and here. I will, however, continue to probe and expose the facts.

In the coming weeks there will be many Legislative changes introduced by the Liberal Government involving minimum wage increases, security of public buildings, and restricting private daycare/babysitters, to name a few. I will continue to put forth constructive arguments and important perspectives from rural/small town Ontario during these debates and votes.

Although the Liberal government has been touting and promoting themselves as the most open, transparent government, the facts contradict their words. This past week the government brought in closure motions to end debate and public participation on the minimum wage and auto insurance bills. Using closure in the first bills introduced can only be described as running roughshod over people and a corruption of the parliamentary process.

On a lighter note, it was wonderful to see a huge turnout of candidates and voters in most of our municipal elections in LFL&A, and I look forward to meeting all the new Councilors, Mayors and Reeves in the near future.

As always, all of the videos and I've shared above and all of my activities are posted both to my facebook page as well as my website for you to see and comment on. You can also always reach me at my offices, by e-mail or by phone.